“Talking to the American People”

January 10, 2012

Mary Anne’s been a fan of President Obama ever since he was elected to the Illinois State Senate.

“I was living there and watching him the whole time. I was amazed at his ability to connect to people who ordinarily would just spin around and go the other way. I watched him grow up in politics you might say. By the time he was on TV in 2004 I already knew him, and it was so exciting to see other people react positively to him.”

Mary Anne used to work in the corporate world, but eventually transitioned to a community based organization working in the west and south side of Chicago, where President Obama also organized.

“There’s another world in our world that you don’t know about, where there are really deep pockets of poverty and lack of city services that everyone else gets. Here’s somebody doing community organizing even farther south on the south side than I was. He knows what’s going on, not just in his own little bubble.”

Mary Anne currently leads a neighborhood team in Delaware. Her favorite way to help President Obama get re-elected? Going door-to-door in Pennsylvania.

“Talking face-to-face with people—I know it’s old school, but there are a lot of us who don’t do social media and people are incredibly responsive to somebody out in bad weather and they’ll say: ‘You must really believe in this guy if you’re out here in this weather.’”

On her trips to Pennsylvania, Marry Anne’s been heartened by the positive reception.

“We’ve been out in working class neighborhoods, in areas of poverty. These people will say to us, ‘thank you for coming out here.’ They’ll ask questions and we’ll tell them where they can get their info. The media is so slash and burn, and they’ll say the American people think this or that, but I'm heartened by my experiences. I can honestly say that I've been out talking to the American people three days this week.”